Curated by composer-scholar Steven Stucky and hosted by Q2 Music's Nadia Sirota, Lutosławski at 100 traces the creative evolution one of the legendary musical voices of the last 100 years. Tune in all day Tuesday, Nov. 12.

In the utter destruction left after World War II, Polish musicians, like all of Polish society, strove to pick up the pieces. At the same time, official artistic policy, newly imported from the Soviet Union, decreed a return to the musical language of the 19th century and an emphasis on folk music.

In Lutosławski’s case, this meant a job at the Polish Radio (hired and nurtured there by Władysław Szpilman, “The Pianist” of Roman Polański’s famous film). Much of his income came from popular songs (composed under pseudonyms) and music for children, but his style in “functional,” “utilitarian” music also led to the mighty Concerto for Orchestra, his first masterpiece.

Lutosławski at 100: Part 2 features the following works: Six Children’s Songs, Silesian Triptych, Bucolics, Dance Preludes, Little Suite and excerpts from Concerto for Orchestra.

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Steven Stucky is one of America’s most highly regarded and frequently performed living composers, and winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for his Second Concerto for Orchestra. For more than 20 years, he served as resident composer and new-music advisor at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and from 2005 to 2009 he was host of the New York Philharmonic’s “Hear and Now” series.

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